Summer Camp 2022 Reading Challenge

Somewhere in your setting, describe a technology lost, forgotten or shrouded in mystery.

The first prompt I'm looking at is the technology prompt.

Remote Projection by Nnie
This is an article about remotely projecting your consciousness using technological gizmos, and I picked it because I like "what if"s and it also raises a concept that I haven't really been using very much even though I could've. If a world has counterfactual or even "magical" phenomena, they are part of reality same as gravity or electricity and the people of your world will seek to use them just the same.

Photovoltaic Effect by Damparo
This is an article about a technology that just became useless due to changing circumstances. As typical with technology articles, I'm mostly drawn to what-ifs and the implications of setting choices, and this article is just a delightfully obvious case of that.

The Forging God's Alchemy by Améliels
While the other articles in this section are sci-fi, this is a more of a fantasy article. It's easy enough to just assume that things in a fantasy setting developed for the same reasons and along the same paths as in our real history, but it doesn't always need to be so.

Somewhere in your setting, describe a food that marks a rite of passage for a culture in your world

Picking this prompt mostly because I tend to be pretty bad at writing about food, and reading other people writing about food might make me better at it.
Man Flesh Hunts by Tuisku
That said, an article where humans are the food doesn't necessarily have amazing applicability for your usual culture worldbuilding. This article and the articles it links to are mostly interesting from the standpoint of writing articles from a very limited-information perspective, such as this one where the people of the setting really know very little about the giants. That is a perspective I've needed to use in my setting in the past, and one I've struggled with.
The Most Awkward Dinner by Hanhula
This is just a fun article. It isn't so much about the food per se, which seems to be common for a lot of these articles. Rather, the food/drink is secondary to the actual purpose of the ritual. This, however is true for a lot of real world equivalents as well, and could be a useful perspective. When people have important events, what do they eat?

Immortality Infused Beverage by MadToxin
This article was slightly counter to the reason I picked this prompt, but I put it here anyway because I liked the premise. Stuff like this is fuel for the sci-fi setting I may or may not at some point make. How does maintaining immortality fit into your daily rhythm?

Somewhere in your setting, describe a tradition or ceremony which confers an honor on someone

For the third prompt, I'm picking the tradition which confers an honor. This follows a general theme I've been doing with reading challenges, which is looking at slightly "fuzzier" cultural prompts. I tend to struggle a bit more with things like these, especially when I can't find a way to logically derive them from something else.

Draconic Cleanse by Endrise
While this also has a mystical aspect to it, this ends up being something of an example of what I was referring to. This article doesn't necessary inherently flow from any other setting detail. It would function without it, but its existence gives the setting color.
First Blood by Stormbril
This has an interesting approach in that it essentially delivers all of the information about the ritual through prose. It's not a technique I use often (though there are some articles like Shaft Abominations), but it is something worth considering at least as a supporting element.
Receiving an Extradimensional Residence Permit by Revyera
It is ironic that I picked this prompt to try to find things that don't flow inherently from first principles, but here I've ended up picking articles that largely just do. I suppose extrapolation is easier for everyone, not just me. Or maybe I just like articles that provoke this "oh, of course" feeling and picked them as a result. Maybe the best "culture" articles do flow naturally from first principles, and I'm just not very good at deriving them sometimes.

Plans

I will likely keep working on the Children of Aktar region for now, as that is also the area where I'm running a campaign. At least, some of the details I've come up for this campaign will be turned into articles. Past that, maybe I move to another area (maybe Palatina finally, they've received a few offhanded mentions in other worldbuilding) or I actually make a sci-fi setting.